The prestigious Atibadi Jagannath Das Award was conferred on noted writer and researcher Dr Dhaneswar Mohapatra for the year 2013 and eminent writer Shantanu Kumar Acharya for the year 2014 by the Odisha Sahitya Akademi on Friday at the Jayadev Bhawan here. Ten eminent personalities were also felicitated for their remarkable contributions to the Odia literature.
Conferring the awards, Tourism and Culture Minister Ashok Chandra Panda stressed on the need to promote Odia language and inspire the younger generation for the same.
Among others, Tourism & Culture Secretary Dr Arabinda Padhee, Culture Director Sushil Das, Odisha Sahitya Akademi President Satakadi Hota and eminent writer Mohapatra Nilamani Sahu were present on the occasion. Since 1993, this prestigious award has been conferred to twenty eminent persons, Radhamohan Gadanayak, Krushna Chandra Tripathy, Natabar Samantray, Rajkishore Pattnaik, laxmindhar Nayak, Gouri Kumar Brahma, Nityananda Mohapatra, Binod Chandra Nayak, Basant Kumari Pattnaik, Achyutananda Pati, Chintamani Behera, Manoranjan Das, Umashankar Panda, Sudarsan Acharya, Manoj Das, Mohapatra Nilamani Sahu, Dasarathi Das, Chandrasekhar Rath, Gaganendra Dash and Brajanath Rath.
